APA Helps Psychiatrists Improve Patient Safety

From the January 16th edition of Psychiatric News:

By Aaron Levin

A new APA [American Psychiatric Association] publication helps psychiatrists reduce errors and keep patients safer.

Patient safety rose in prominence in American medical thinking with the publication a decade ago of "To Err Is Human," the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) report estimating that tens of thousands of people die every year in American hospitals due to preventable medical errors.

Now APA has published a 33-page handbook that addresses ways to develop and integrate systems to reduce or prevent six critical events: suicide, aggression, falls, elopement, medical comorbidities, and drug or medication errors. Each chapter provides examples of unsafe care along with discussions of what went wrong and how to prevent mistakes.

To read the entire article, click here.

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To download SAFE MD, the 33-page handbook, click here (PDF).

SAFE MD: Practical Applications and Approaches to Safe Psychiatric Practice

Resource document, approved by the Joint Reference Committee in June 2008, that emphasizes applications and approaches to safe psychiatric practice in six categories: Suicide; Aggression; Falls; Elopement; Medical comorbidity; and Drug/medication errors.